JEPHTE (Hebrew Jiphtāh). - A valiant Gileadite, judge of Israel (1 Sam. 12:11), whose exploit is narrated in Judg. 10:6-12:7.
An illegitimate son of Gilead, driven out by his legitimate brothers, he took refuge in the region of Tob, at the springs of the Jordan; there, in the harsh life of the raider, alone against everyone (Gen. 16:12), he succeeded in imposing his courage and his valor (like David in the wilderness of Judah and of Ziph), and became the leader of a large band of men who, like him, had fled or been driven out from their own clan. When his fellow countrymen, oppressed by the Ammonites who, encamped in Gilead, burst even into Judah, turned to Yahweh to be liberated and, having removed idolatry, rose up in arms, finding no one among them to assume command, they sent to beg J. to accept the grave task. J. accepted, after having made the elders and his tribe swear in the name of Yahweh that after the victory they would give him power. It was an attempt, after that of Gideon, to establish a monarchical principality; an attempt that ended with J.
The contest was difficult, and J., while seeking to gather armed men, began negotiations. These having failed, J., trusting in Yahweh, to whom he made a vow to sacrifice the first person who, on his return, came out of his house to meet him, attacked the Ammonites by surprise, swiftly and decisively. He routed them in many victorious encounters; he reconquered 20 Israelite cities, liberated Gilead as far as the Jordan. The victor was met, first among the other virgins, by his only daughter, for the ritual rejoicing. At this sight J. raised a pitiful lament. The daughter gave her father courage; she asked only for two months to bewail with her companions on the mountains her "virginity," that is, the flower of her youth cut off; when the two months had passed, J. sacrificed her.
The Ephraimites, as already with Gideon, rose up against J. because he had won without them. J., who had invited them in vain at the moment of danger, bloodily repelled their insolence. At the fords of the Jordan the Ephraimites, recognized by the pronunciation of the word sibboleth "ear of grain," which instead they pronounced sibboleth "current," were killed (an analogous episode in the Sicilian Vespers: the French revealed themselves by mispronouncing "ceci").
J. is a fervent Yahwist; for him Yahweh knows how to protect his people against the other peoples and their gods (Judg. 21:11, 24-27; cf. Heb. 11:32 ff.). His faith, however, is rudimentary, with the stain of human sacrifice, performed by J. in his ignorance of the law of Sinai, and in imitation of the Canaanites (thus also did the Moabite king Mesha: 2 Kings 3:27). The decline from pure Yahwism begins, characteristic of that period of fragmentation, under the deleterious influence of Canaanite culture.